"Internet Essentials" is a $10/month internet plan available to any family with one child eligible for free lunches at American public schools. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad on Sep 20, 2011 - 108 comments

PBS's excellent weekly news magazine, Need to Know, explains why European broadband speeds are racing ahead of the USA. Britain now has 400 broadband suppliers with service available for as little as $6/month. Bonus: Harvard's Berkman Center reports on broadband supply trends around the world.
posted by anigbrowl on May 13, 2011 - 53 comments

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently announced the rollout of a searchable map, which also offers a nation-wide view of internet service providers with filters for various technologies. The map is based on information collected from broadband providers or other data sources. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Feb 24, 2011 - 7 comments

According to official Chinese stats, make of them what you will, there are now 457 million internet users in China. They are said to include 450m who have broadband, and 303m who use mobile internet. 304m play online games, 140m use online banking, and 63m microblog. These users are estimated to spend an average of 18 hours a week online. As a benchmark, the current US population is estimated at 312m.
posted by philipy on Jan 19, 2011 - 26 comments

The FCC has announced its National Broadband Plan.
posted by pjern on Mar 16, 2010 - 28 comments

"For the month of March 2010, the city of Topeka will be known as Google, Kansas." Mayor Bill Bunten says the proclamation is an attempt to stand out from the crowd, as cities around the United States have until March 26 to tell Google they're interested in participating in the Fiber for Communities program, part of the company's recently announced plans to build a series of superfast broadband networks across the country [previously on MetaFilter]. Other cities are trying to get Google's attention, but Duluth, Minnesota, has upped the ante by pledging to name its firstborn sons "Google Fiber" and its firstborn daughters "Googlette Fiber" in a video [YouTube, 3:34] spoofing Topeka's efforts.
posted by amyms on Mar 4, 2010 - 47 comments

Using the Web to buy a carton of milk in Nunavut. Satellite Internet in Nunavut (Canada’s newest territory – the White Stripes played there) is slow and has such draconian bandwidth caps (2GB a month) that nobody downloads audio or video. But they use it for every kind of online banking and E-commerce in a territory with barely any retail stores. [more inside]
posted by joeclark on Nov 13, 2008 - 15 comments

Shooting the Messenger (PDF). A new report from Free Press "dispels the many myths manufactured by the telecommunications industry to excuse America's poor broadband performance compared to the rest of the world."
posted by homunculus on Jul 19, 2007 - 38 comments

New Zealand is a backwater when it comes to high speed internet. Today the government has done something about it.
posted by Samuel Farrow on May 3, 2006 - 16 comments

The End of the Internet? "The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online."
posted by allkindsoftime on Feb 4, 2006 - 32 comments

The BBC announces plans to make its TV channels available on the internet. As you already know, you can already listen to all BBC radio channels live and view news clips and some news programmes. Now the BBC has ambitions to expand its internet offer even further. Starting next year, on demand radio and tv content will be available through MyBBCPlayer, with the past seven days of programmes, along with live streaming of BBC tv channels (apparently to be restricted to UK viewers only) and access to the archives. Plans also include the ability to purchase music downloads.
posted by funambulist on Aug 28, 2005 - 26 comments

Robot planes may make phone towers obsolete "...it's a "Stratellite", and its makers believe it will revolutionise the broadband and wireless industry; if it ever gets off the ground.

Wisconsin communications company Sanswire on Tuesday unveiled its almost-finished prototype of a hard-framed, unmanned airship designed to fly in the stratosphere 21km above the earth and send broadband and cellphone signals to an area the size of Texas."

This in my opinion is an example of truly innovative technology.
posted by jaydedx on Apr 13, 2005 - 25 comments

There are now more home internet users using broadband than dialup in the U.S. - Does this mean that web designers will continue down the same path as some programmers and create bloated code? Are the days of trying to be efficient and keeping pages less than 70k a thing of the past?
posted by tomplus2 on Aug 23, 2004 - 29 comments

Proposal to have companies rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police "A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police. The FBI's request to the Federal Communications Commission aims to give police ready access to any form of Internet-based communications. If approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development." Read more about the FBI's proposal at Cnet.com. or MSNBC. But where is the actual proposal?
posted by fluffycreature on Mar 15, 2004 - 8 comments

Stringing broadband connections through the city sewer system is a dirty smelly job but something has to do it! Check out the companies and the sewer-bots that are doing this dirty work.
posted by thedailygrowl on Nov 21, 2002 - 9 comments

Buy SBC now. "In order to make sure the economy grows, we must bring the promise of broadband technology to millions of Americans,'' Bush said at a White House-sponsored economic forum. "Government at all levels should remove hurdles that slow the pace of deployment.''

Is the USTA happy about this type of talk? You bet. They would like to see passage of S.2430, also known as the Broadband Regulatory Parity Act of 2002. Others wouldn't. Some have studies (300K PDF) that argue local phone companies are slowing the growth of DSL for anti-competitive reasons.

Also, notice how the President said "bring the promise of broadband technology to millions of Americans", not all Americans? Might have something to do with the fact that rural DSL is really, really expensive to provide.
posted by dglynn on Aug 14, 2002 - 14 comments

FBI enforcing the bandwidth CAP. With broadband caps spreading across North America, I wonder if we will see more stories like this, as users find they want to use more than 4 to 6 gigs a month.
posted by Iax on Jul 1, 2002 - 18 comments

75% of dial-up users are satisfied with their current speeds. This opinion piece states that, out of those people that have not yet made the switch to broadband, only 25% of them even would if available. Thus, little ISP's shouldn't worry about losing dial up business so much anymore. Can the Internet continue to evolve at 56K speeds?
posted by WolfDaddy on May 3, 2002 - 47 comments

Dump broadband? *gasp* Well, according to this ZDNet article, it's a movement. With price hikes and a souring economy, some people can't justify the cost. Could you let it go?
posted by hotdoughnutsnow on Nov 7, 2001 - 50 comments

AOL may buy AT&T broadband in a deal that could allow them to own the browser, net access, data pipes, and content for a vast majority of internet usage and users. How far will AOL/TW go to control any and all forms of media? Are hearings to break the company up far off?
posted by mathowie on Sep 10, 2001 - 14 comments

AOL's walled garden. Anyone who doesnt think that AOL will only link to AOL/Time Warner properties in the broadband future is fooling themselves.
posted by owillis on Oct 27, 2000 - 3 comments